ONE MORE DAY AT HOME

“God sometimes allows problem to come into our lives to encourage us to make a step forward”

Sunday Adelaja

KEEP PADDLING LYNNE. KEEP PADDLING

I do believe that I am now extremely odd. With the physical side of this period easing and less dominant in my daily life, I seem to have arrived at the emotional place wherein I am agorophobic and quite odd. EMERGING FROM THIS STAGE WILL BE A CHALLENGE. I might do a steps run through this year and see where it leads me. I do know that I am powerless over all of it and its making my life unmanageable.

This month I am in Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.

I can feel the edges of it and although I am on the edges of being overwhelmed by odd jobs that need doing, I do feel saner than I have for a time. Trouble is – I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to get up. I just want to half exist.

My addiction was very much like this. My focus was heroin and pills and non-existence. Funny really – when I do so love life. So this time has that feel to it. I am awake during the nights when the world can’t trouble me and asleep through as much of the day as I am able to be.

Well its nighttime now. The kids are still waiting to see what happens with their grandfather who is nearing the end.

Me – I am home alone. Re-adjusting. I don’t like living in an ordinary building in an ordinary street but I do seem to be getting healthier here.

I have plenty of internet and plenty of sweet dreams.

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This applies to Grief and Major Illness for me as well as my drug recovery.

STEP 2.

Addiction is a perilous disease that often leads individuals down a path of insanity. It causes individuals to do things they wouldn’t normally do, think thoughts they normally wouldn’t think, or have emotions they normally wouldn’t feel.”

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While some addicts don’t feel as though they are insane and may resist help because they feel they don’t need to be “restored to sanity,” insanity can be explained through the “addict’s definition”—insanity is doing the same things over and over, but expecting different results; therefore his or her behavior is insane.

Step Two is a step of hope for a return to the happy and healthy lifestyle we once had. It builds faith that a higher power can help restore us to sanity and allow us to continue through the Steps toward addiction recovery. The book of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions explains, “Step Two is the rallying point for all of us. Whether agnostic, atheist, or former believer, we can stand together on this Step.” Even though this mentions individuals of all beliefs, some addicts struggle with the idea of looking to “a Power great than ourselves” to help restore us to sanity. This is because the “Power” at first glance refers to God, and not everyone is on the same religious path. It is important to remember that 12 Step programs are spiritual, not religious.

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Acceptance
Our very first problem is to accept
our present circumstances as they are,
ourselves as we are, and the people about us as we are.
This is to adopt a realistic humility
without which no genuine advance can even begin.
Again and again, we shall need to return
to that unflattering point of departure.
This is an exercise in acceptance
that we can profitably practice every day of our lives.
Bill W., AAGrapevine, March 1962
c. 1967 AAWS, As Bill Sees It, p. 44